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July 27, 2008

I recently shuffled my entire office around. Why? Because it was time for serious change.

Remember that scene from Dead Poet’s Society, where the teacher, played by Robin Williams, gets the kids to stand on their desks so they can see the world in a different way?

Yeah, it’s like that now. Only more so.

Now, it doesn’t have to be as drastic an exercise as it was for me (it was a solid two day job, shifting everything in my office somewhere new). Often just reversing a couple of pieces of key furniture, or turning a single chair to face a different direction can give you a whole new perspective on life.

I had a friend who used to completely rearrange his bedroom every six months. At the time I didn’t really understand it, but now I see what a clear message it sends to our brains.

Every time you’re in that environment, all the old familiar signals you’re used to are now gone. Your brain has to reassess. It makes it easier to lose old habits, along with the old environment. It’s easy to feel like you’re starting a new life, because everything feels so different. Not only that, but we get constant drum beat every second we’re in that room:

Don’t take things for granted!

You do have influence in your environment!

You can make things exactly how you want them!

If you’re unhappy, change it!

Better things are afoot!

Even more essentially, it keeps things fresh, it makes you feel at a very deep level like you’re making a new start – and sometimes that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

Now, I suspect this comes from a combination of “anything worthwhile takes effort” & the feeling of accomplishment that comes from overcoming ridiculous odds.

But really, who cares why? The important thing is to get it the hell out of my life.

And, mostly, I’ve done that, using a combination of releasing & EFT. There’s still some residual stuff there, but it’s much lighter. How do I know there’s some left? When I went to the bank today it took 45 minutes & 3 different tellers for what is usually a 10 minute exercise. That’s struggling.

Realising that this has been such a deep belief of mine has put everything in my life into extreme focus. So many of the difficulties, the pain, the hardship. I realise now the vast majority (if not all) of them were self created. Fortunately, they don’t have to be. I decide what I believe, so I can change that.

Really interestingly, today I saw for the first time, all these situations where I’m making things harder for myself. Instinctive choices I’m about to make that wind things up instead of down, make things harder instead of easier. The beauty is as I make those different choices, I can, finally, see things smoothing out before me.

So ask yourself. Is your life as smooth as it could be? Maybe?

To get to the point where I was able to admit this to myself has taken a couple of years – again, that’s me struggling. For you? I hope the answer comes much quicker, and is a resounding “Hell No!”

ok, ok, one more funny quote, from the director (they had a stack of geeks on set the whole time)

You could get all the hacker geekiness you wanted just by standing on the set. We were dealing with things like when Matthew sits at the computer, we’ve got an actor who can’t even type. I’d say, “No, I just really want him to type in ‘David’ and have him get on.” They said, “No! You can’t do that! You have to go through all these elaborate sequences!” I said, “No, we’re not doing that. Audiences will have left the theater by the time he logs into the computer one time.”